BRATTLEBORO — Sandglass Theater announces the return of a beloved community event, ‘Puppets in Paradise’ (PIP) this weekend, Oct. 10–12. All the performances will be held in the Retreat Farm at 45 Farmhouse Square. Audiences will walk around the farm and encounter short-form puppet performances, theater artists and musicians amidst the fields, historic barns and animals. Food and refreshments from local vendors add to the delight of a beautiful day. Puppets in Paradise runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday (last performance begins at 3:30 p.m.). Golf Carts will be available for increased accessibility for most performance locations. Sandglass estimates that the full daytime experience takes at least two hours.
The opening evening, beginning at 6:15 p.m., will feature a parade of giant lantern puppets followed by an outdoor shadow puppetry performance from Kerala, India called Tholpavakoothu. This traditional form of puppetry features 60 deerskin puppets placed in front of coconut oil lamps that cast shadows behind screens as the puppeteers enact the story with myriad characters. Puppets in Paradise 2025 will be the first festival in Vermont to feature a Tholpavakoothu performance.
Oct. 11 and 12 will feature continuous short performances from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets and more info can be found on: Sandglasstheater.org
Entry to the Friday performance is by donation of cash or check. Tickets are required only for the Saturday and Sunday performances. Sandglass offers four ticketing options to choose from ranging between $10-$25. Children two years and under receive free admission.
Performing artists
Heather Henson (Green Feather Foundation), daughter of Jim and Jane Henson, will be bringing her show, “Remember the Way: Fish and Flow Experience” where audiences will be encouraged to connect with their local body of water. Through kinetic learning, embodied movement, crafting with natural materials, and place-based meditations, participants of all ages will find new connections with their place within the great flow of the world’s water and the beings that live within them.
Tholpavakoothu (co-produced by Break-fast Puppets) is a form of shadow puppetry that is believed to have originated in Kerala, India in the 9th century AD. It uses the Kamba Ramayana as its basic text and puppeteers depict various tales from the epic text as short performance pieces. The performances often involve as many as 150 puppets made with deerskin placed in front of oil lamps that cast shadows on massive fabric screens. The PIP festival performance will be led by Rahul Koonathara, a 12th-generation practitioner of this traditional form of puppetry who will bring 60 puppets that will be handled by him and two other performers.
Sarah Nolen (Puppet Motion) will bring her storytelling show called Party Animals featuring an array of furry friends that have their own names and eclectic character traits.
Tom Tuke, a puppeteer from Aotearoa, New Zealand, now based in Connecticut will perform “Tales of Kimi: The New Death,” along with Melissa Carter, a puppeteer from Seattle. Their show is a tale of the Grim Reaper, the laziest deity in all the land, and his hapless assistant Kimi. As they navigate the river Styx, they get hungry, and decide to find a feed.
Charlotte Lily Gaspard (Midnight Radio Show) brings “Mermaid Life Story,” a hand-painted mermaid puppet’s journey, accompanied by original songs. Midnight Radio Show is a shadow puppet and science fiction fairytale theatre collective based out of Brooklyn, NYC.
Stoph Scheer (Doppelskope) will present “Sharing Update,” a comedic monologue about a father with limited vocabulary who tries to update his friends about his child’s gender transition, admonishing them to respect his child’s identity while accidentally misgendering his kid at the same time. Stoph is a puppeteer, writer, and improvisor known for her work with Sandglass,
Andrew Kim (Thingumajig Theatre) is a puppet maker and performer based in West Yorkshire, England with over 30 years of experience creating parades, giant puppets, and performances worldwide. He started at In the Heart of the Beast (Minneapolis) and Bread and Puppet, and studied traditional Korean and Balinese forms.
Kimberly Cotter Lemus, a puppetry artist, musician, and arts educator based in Rhode Island, brings to life, Madame Manouche – a world-renowned fortune teller or an unscrupulous charlatan – she lets the audience decide.
Harry LaCoste (Good News Gus) will entertain audiences with “The Loose Caboose” – the story of a train engineer who is separated from his whole train and just left with the caboose and some luggage. The show explores the suitcases and introduces various puppet characters and stories.
Kirk Murphy and Shoshana Bass (Sandglass Theater) will present the gargoyle duo Hugo and Claude. Alike in stone only, one delights in the daily visits from pigeon friends and dreams of flying freely with them, while the other gargoyle can’t stand them and can only grumble about those pesky little birds. One day, a miracle happens.
Ines Zeller Bass and Eric Bass (with Matt Sharff) will perform their original crankie, “The Cabbage Leaf Summit.” A crankie is a scrolling panorama, housed in a wooden box and often turned (or “cranked”) to the music of a ballad. This crankie brings to visual life a song by Eric Bass. A Mole, a Vole, and a Nasty Old Troll meet under a Cabbage Leaf to discuss their dreams for a better world. Ultimately, they can only affirm their appetites! Sandglass Theater founders, Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass, came to crankies as an extension of their puppet art. Together, Eric and Ines have created an array of crankies that range from a humorous Quebecois song to an enigmatic Yiddish lullaby, from a 1930s novelty song to an imagistic journey of refugees set to a guitar instrumental.
Puppets in Paradise is presented in collaboration with Retreat Farm. Project funding is provided in parts by grants from the National Performance Network (NPN) Artist Engagement Fund, The Thomas Thompson Trust, The Windham Foundation, and the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.
Puppets in Paradise is sponsored by Landmark College, Oak Meadow, M&T Bank, and Guilford Sound. Additional support provided by Brattleboro Savings & Loan and The Richards Group.